A Consumer-Centric Growth Innovation Strategy for Premium Brands

Transcription

1 disruption emerging from the edges culturally relevant growth defend to gain product attributes go-to-market strategy on trend % category Unit share A Consumer-Centric Growth Innovation Strategy for Premium Brands

2 HARTMAN ASCEND: KEEPING YOUR BRAND RELEVANT IN THE FACE OF CHANGE HARTMAN ASCEND Early stage, emerging premium brands are successfully nipping away at category brand leaders share causing significant upheaval in the market. Why? Because premium is no longer just about a price gap over private brands or B brands. It s about disruptive quality perceptions emerging from the upmarket edges of the marketplace (e.g., Trader Joe s, Whole Foods Market, upscale restaurants). In conventional retail grocery channels, for example, these emerging brands represent 4 percent category unit share on average but sometimes as much as 30 percent unit share and are gaining market share against the traditional incumbent brand leaders every year. In this environment of disruption, it is critical to learn years in advance from these upmarket disruptors so your organization has time to funnel culturally relevant product innovations into your legacy brands. Hartman Ascend keeps category leaders at the top with market derived innovation strategies. Through Hartman Ascend s unique approach and custom analytical framework, it assures enduring brand relevance, and dominance, by providing upmarket trend-driven innovation strategies. 3 Reasons Why You Need Ascend Defend market share and position as category leader Have a metrics-based innovation strategy for staying on top as food culture evolves Stave off threats by know your competitors (current and upcoming) strengths and capitalize on their weaknesses Who Benefits From Hartman Ascend? Business unit leadership or category/brand leadership for market share leading brands that orient to upmarket consumption today: must sell a non-industrial food product, preferably connected to an authentic food category (e.g. bread) where upmarket trends tend to be most active and worthy of pulling in to maintain brand relevance. Hartman Ascend s Value Discover product attributes that are propelling significant topline growth and accelerate the growth of your category s premium segment Defend against upmarket health and wellness and culinary trends that could erode share via small brand competitors Keep your brand relevant to premium trends to retain lucrative, less price sensitive upmarket consumers Get a data-driven prioritization for your premium product pipeline that helps keep you at or ahead of trends in your category Contact: Shelley Balanko, SVP: , ext shelley@hartman-group.com

3 Hartman Ascend: CASE STUDY Brand Leader in Healthy Adult Cereals Losing Share Situation A share leader in healthy adult cereals noticed that, among educated/ affluent households, it was losing share of requirements to emerging brands from the natural channel. Moreover, brand equity tracking data was starting to indicate the brand no longer was seen as a leader in healthy cereals. Leadership was looking for specialized help to understand what health-oriented premium trends would help keep these consumers from rotating into natural brands or at least reduce the frequency of this rotation to help sustain its market share in the space. Our Approach The Hartman Strategy team used the Ascend process to isolate: a) key premium attributes driving real growth in the category, b) which of these attributes would best address Brand X s real situation, and c) how extensively they should alter the product portfolio. Outcome Cereal brand X was able to boost its share of requirements among educated/affluent brand buyers by 2 percent while also sustaining five quarters of low single digit topline growth. It also helped them avoid a potentially expensive supply chain switch to an ingredient not likely to change health perceptions of the brand in a meaningful way. Hartman Ascend: APPROACH Hartman Ascend is a four-step process: 1: Identify top growth attributes 2: Brand audit 3: Rank relevant attributes ability to mainstream 4: Go-to-market strategy for your brand Contact: Shelley Balanko, SVP: , ext shelley@hartman-group.com

4 Hartman Ascend: APPROACH OVERVIEW In-Person Kick-off Step 1: Surface top upmarket growth attributes in your category (or influencer categories) through proprietary statistical analysis of natural/specialty scanner data Input: target category Process: custom attribute tagging and statistical analysis Output: top, leading edge, upmarket growth attributes in your category and why they are driving demand in food culture Step 2: Brand audit to determine which growth attributes are relevant to the brand Input: upmarket category growth attributes Process: an initial qualitative/culinary analysis based on our expert understanding of the consumers driving these emerging premium attributes Output: top 10 growth attributes new to the brand Step 3: Ranking Relevant Attributes by their Ability to Mainstream Per Attribute: Input: top 10 growth attributes from above Process: proprietary scorecard that evaluates sales performance of top selling early stage brands featuring the attribute, relative cultural mainstream-ability of the attribute, and number of interested non-consumers Output: rank order of top five brand-relevant growth attributes in terms of mainstreamability long term in contemporary food culture Step 4: Go-to-Market Strategy for Your Brand Input: brand-relevant, growth attributes with biggest potential midmarket demand Process: relevant competitive analysis, general pacing of the attribute trend; internal stakeholder interviews regarding brand elasticity/strategy and supply chain/r&d barriers; measurement of current scale for each attribute; and Hartman assessment of optimal go-to-market option based on all of the above Output: optimal market timing sequence for introducing attributes into the brand advise on how to go to market within the brand for each attribute: as line extensions, sub-brands, part of a brand renovation, or simply as additional UPCs in an existing line full competitive landscape for each attribute who is selling the attribute, level of fragmentation, presence of big competitor or not Final Presentation On-Site at Client s Offices The project turnaround time is 8 to 10 weeks from time of signed contract. Resource Requirements Access to stakeholders for interviews, Nielsen/IRI scanner data, SPINS natural channel scanner data. Contact: Shelley Balanko, SVP: , ext shelley@hartman-group.com

5 Contact For more information or to schedule a Hartman Ascend innovation strategy engagement, contact: Shelley Balanko, Ph.D. Senior Vice President, Business Development , ext. 103 shelley@hartman-group.com